In my opinion, no. Those lazy journo's who wrote off solis all get to excersize their confirmation bias but the reality is that they were wrong. Solis did look like he could have made the fight very competitive. He was winning the round and the shot he did take landed while his left foot was slipping (the slip which damaged his cruciate ligaments in his right knee). Of course he could have gone on to lose but there was nothing to suggest, from the little we saw last night, that he was as heavily outmatched as these people were predicting.

I'm not trying to undermine Vitali, I just wanted to ask: is anyone else getting sick of poor boxing journalists who can't read boxing? they just follow the hype train and put down underdogs because it's easy. Now they all get to say how brilliant they are at reading styles because solis had a freak injury which none of them were previously aware of.

In my opinion, no. Those lazy journo's who wrote off solis all get to excersize their confirmation bias but the reality is that they were wrong. Solis did look like he could have made the fight very competitive. He was winning the round and the shot he did take landed while his left foot was slipping (the slip which damaged his cruciate ligaments in his right knee). Of course he could have gone on to lose but there was nothing to suggest, from the little we saw last night, that he was as heavily outmatched as these people were predicting.

I'm not trying to undermine Vitali, I just wanted to ask: is anyone else getting sick of poor boxing journalists who can't read boxing? they just follow the hype train and put down underdogs because it's easy. Now they all get to say how brilliant they are at reading styles because solis had a freak injury which none of them were previously aware of.

SpongeBob Solis is a lazy POS whose lack of discipline finally caught up to him. All that time spent being out of shape meant that when it came time to deliver the goods, he was unable to do so, in part because his body let him down.

Any writer who takes that position is 100% correct.

Personally, I believe the plan was always to take the money and run.

Solis says he dislikes boxing. Oner is a crook.

Maybe he's hurt, maybe he is exaggerating, I don't believe anything that comes out of Oner's mouth.

SpongeBob Solis is a lazy POS whose lack of discipline finally caught up to him. All that time spent being out of shape meant that when it came time to deliver the goods, he was unable to do so, in part because his body let him down.

Any writer who takes that position is 100% correct.

Personally, I believe the plan was always to take the money and run.

Solis says he dislikes boxing. Oner is a crook.

Maybe he's hurt, maybe he is exaggerating, I don't believe anything that comes out of Oner's mouth.

So when they said he was out of shape they anticipated him getting an injury as a result (although not explicitly stating it)?

I disagree, i think that the doubters largely thought he would be immobile, fat and just take jabs all night and eventually give up because of his "poor discipline". It's difficult to generalise but I don't think you could find many examples of people suggesting that he would get around vitali's jab with a high amount of success, land more often but retire because of injury (amoungst the people who thought he was a bum).

What are you talking about?
Solis was losing the round, up until the KD, he landed exactly one overhand right and couple of amateurish taps.
Vitaly was winning it on all accounts:
Effective Aggressiveness -- he controlled the distance with the jab and kept being an aggressor, while seldom letting Solis take advantage of the fact.
Punches landed -- including the last punch Vitaly landed more jabs and more powerpunches
Ring generalship - fight was always fought where vitaly wanted it and at his distance.

At the end of the day that old man wanted to keep his belt more than the fat guy wanted to take it.

The right hand is what made him fall.
maybe if he wasn't so overweight he wouldn't have damaged his leg as he fell??

It's possible that if he had taken things more seriously earlier on in his professional career this injury may have been avoided. BUT he could have had a good shot at beating vitali despite weighing 250 pounds. People saying he had no chance is what I'm disagreeing with, not that he hampered his chances by being overweight.

The reality is there were people saying "oh he's fat and will get pounded for 6 rounds before giving up" not "he's talented enough to cause an upset but might have knee troubles which will cause him to retire"

They were right but for the wrong reasons (they weren't right about his ability but about the ultimate result, which is more luck than judgement).

Also, with regard to the right hand, he was slipping before it landed. how much of a difference did it make? it's hard to say.

Some writers, like Eric Raskin of The Ring, thought Solis was a potential champion. See the article in the current issue.

Teddy Atlas thought he'd beat Vitali.

I have no problem with this, i have no problem with people who thought that vitali would win. I just don't like lazy journalists who simply wrote him off (of which there were many) and now seem to think they themselves were correct.